


Wayward Spirit

by siegeinterrupted (smasharchived)



Category: Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Platonic Relationships, ship mentions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-09
Updated: 2019-07-09
Packaged: 2020-06-25 07:27:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19740991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smasharchived/pseuds/siegeinterrupted
Summary: On a dark, cold night, Maverick abandons the comfort of a Christmas Eve party to listen to the Wanderer's song. Always singing in the back of his mind, it calls to him - calling him home, to a place very few can follow. Problem is, not everybody can hear it. And tonight, not being one to leave his fellow man out in the cold, that everybody is Thermite. In a Santa hat, no less.---------------------------------------------------Written for the Naughty, or Nice prompt challenge on Tumblr (run by FuckYeahRainbowSix.Tumblr.Com). Prompt: A White Christmas(Repost)





	Wayward Spirit

**Author's Note:**

> .  
> ****************  
> Repost Note  
> ****************  
> .  
> Several months ago I reached a very dark place after a combination of medical issues, work issues and fandom drama that'd finally climaxed. In response to a seemingly endless pile of shit, I nuked all my stories from AO3 in the hopes of washing my hands of it all.
> 
> Since then I've realised that writing and posting my works was and is a fundamental part of who I am, and in tearing them down I have ironically hurt myself more. So on the advice of people very special to me, I'm returning to AO3 with an apology and the works I deleted. Over the next few weeks I'll be reposting everything to this account and I hope that anyone who still enjoys my writing enough to put up with me, can enjoy these stories again.
> 
> Thank you ❤.  
> .  
> ****************  
> Original Note  
> ****************  
> .  
> If I'm being honest with everyone here, this turned far more emotional than Christmas orientated. But I did sprinkle some Christmas in there. You'll have to tell me if it works. Also, this is my first attempt at Maverick. I apologize if he's OOC ❤.
> 
> \---Dari Translations ---
> 
> Beraadar = Brother

* * *

**x:x:x:x:x:x:x:x:x:x:x:x:x:x:x:x**

* * *

The snowflake lands on his nose.

It’s cold, at first. Biting in a way that makes him shiver, yet so familiar that if he closes his eyes and turns his face up towards the curtain of white drifting from the sky, he can almost picture it. Can picture the arid land he’s walked the length of more than once, blanketed in ice. Beautiful, despite the bitter chill that cut him to the bone.

And then, the snow melts.

Frozen rain warming against flushed skin, until there’s tiny rivulets spilling down onto his cheeks.

(Erik Thorn has always loved dangerous things.)

Standing outside the barracks, just beyond the halogen lights lining the path down towards the armoury, Maverick sighs – breath misting in front of him as his blue gaze blinks back open, eyelashes catching a few more snowflakes while he searches the black canvas above. Looking for the stars that used to guide him through miles of unrelenting desert, their presence a reminder that he wasn’t alone on the days when there was nothing but sand and Afghanistan’s unforgiving heat for company.

There’s none tonight.

Not even here in rural Washington DC, the outer chambers of America’s heart just as polluted the rest of it.

(He’s made a habit out of chasing dangerous things.)

The wind starts to pick up around him, rustling at his mess of hair, left defenceless without the trademark Pakol he usually wore to tamp it down. Maverick ignores it, even with goose flesh rising along his bare forearms and the roar growing in his ears. Ignores it because it brings a sense of peace, as it blocks out the rowdy noise echoing from the rec room.

Or it does, until the gale blowing around him masks the sound of the barracks heavy set front door opening. Hiding the familiar tread of combat boots on gravel.

‘… Thorn?’

By the time Maverick registers the Southern drawl, Thermite is already behind him. Grey eyes glinting in the dark with a knowing edge, past experience having taught the Marine to anticipate the Delta operator’s reactionary turn.

Half a second later, and Maverick is facing him.

Calm river turning into violent rapids, surprise crashing over the blonde like a rogue wave.

(And dangerous things have made a habit out of chasing him.)

It takes another second for Maverick to recognize his teammate, blown pupils taking in that easy smile before flicking to track the vibrant red Santa hat dancing in the breeze, with its fuzzy pompom and fluffy white crown. An hour or so ago, he’d watched the Texan put it on his head, after Ash had banished him from helping with the Christmas lights.

_‘I’m surprised you could fit your ego in that,’ Flament had rumbled from his spot on the couch, where Baker, already leaning over the back of it, hadn’t even bothered to try and hide the hands rubbing along Lion’s shoulders._

_Thermite had winked at that, amused, as he’d picked up a beer bottle and casually popped the cap with his own belt buckle. ‘A bit of teasing, bud, and you can make anything fit.’_

Licking at lips already beginning to crack from exposure, Maverick shrugs, pretending not to notice the fact that Thermite has parked himself just out of reach. Pretending that it’s not the only reason his reaction hadn’t been more physical.

‘Trace…’ Instinct has him almost crossing his arms before steel kicks in, curbing his urge to fade back into the shadows and hide. ‘Did they run out of Bud Light already, _beraadar_?’

(Of them all, Trace is the one that sees him the most.)

(The good parts, and the bad.)

‘Careful, now, or you’re gonna go hurtin’ my feelin’s,’ Thermite says, grinning like a wolf at the veiled insult. ‘Do you really think that little of me, man?’

Maverick slowly cocks a blonde eyebrow, his poker face belying dry wit. ‘Can’t say I think much of you.’

‘Sticks and stones, Thorn,’ the Marine laughs, not missing a beat. Over their months together, Maverick has to admit that he’s only ever seen Thermite roll with the punches, even when the Texan could have stood to throw a few himself. ‘Sticks and stones.’

‘Hm,’ turning his back on the Texan, Maverick glances to the sky again, feeling strangely unsettled by the emptiness, yet more comforted by it than the man hovering in his blind spot. ‘What do you want, Jordan?’

There’s a pause.

‘Jordan, huh?’ Thermite asks after a beat, sounding faintly curious as he steps close enough for his body heat to radiate across the gap between them. ‘We not playin’ anymore?’

‘Was just a question,’ Maverick murmurs, the proximity making the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.

‘It always is with you, ain’t it?’

 _That_ gets his attention in a way that's noticeable. Not quite understanding the implication, Maverick flicks his gaze back to his broader teammate, studying his face and frowning ever so slightly when all he finds there is that same, lazy Tomcat smirk. It gives away nothing, not even a warning before Thermite reaches towards him, pressing the back of his scarred fingers against Maverick’s cheek, strangely textured skin brushing against the blonde’s own.

The touch makes Maverick go statue-still, restraint stopping him from pulling away.

‘A few of us were wonderin’ why you were freezin’ your ass off,’ Thermite offers as an explanation, clearly feeling his temperature. ‘Don’t think Six was lookin’ for a new ornament out here, and Doc sure as hell ain't lookin' for a new patient. You gonna come in before we end up with a Boston-bred icicle on our front lawn?’

‘Would be an improvement,’ Maverick says, abiding Thermite’s knuckles grazing over his forehead with careful patience. ‘Don’t think we’ve recovered from Cowden’s DIY renovation yet.’

(The barracks steps are still cracked and broken.)

(Even now.)

‘You know, I told the girls to worry none? But shit, here you’ve got jokes.’ Thermite gives the blonde a _look_ – one that says far more than his joking demeanour – before letting his arm drop back to his side. A tell, Maverick guesses, though whether it’s nervous or otherwise remained to be seen. ‘If you’re gonna insist on a case of pneumonia, at least stop in and tell Clash I tried, yeah? If you don’t, she ain’t gonna eat me the way the Lord intended...’

‘Morowa has her shiny toy back,’ Maverick says with the shadow of a smirk, resolutely ignoring certain parts of the conversation. Porter had flown back in three days ago, and they all knew how much she liked yanking the older man’s chain. ‘You’ll be safe.’

‘Alright, alright.’ Rolling his eyes, the Texan thought for a minute, searching for another excuse to prop up his argument. ‘Let’s go with ‘Liza, then.’

The thought of Eliza Cohen doing little more than calling the both of them idiots nearly makes the reserved man snort. ‘Doubt it.’

‘Fuck me if you ain’t hard to please…’ Absently reaching to tug his Santa hat more securely onto his head, Thermite makes sure it’s in place before hooking his thumbs through the belt loops of his jeans. ‘How ‘bout you tickle my ear with your excuse, and I’ll leave you be?’

It’s naïve to think Trace will leave him alone without an answer.

Since the day Six had introduced them inside the immaculately decorated HQ she called her office, Jordan Trace had been an outlier. One that Maverick had picked up on rather quickly after years of navigating language and cultural barriers, his motivation for learning steeped solely in his will to not only survive, but succeed. And he'd found that beneath Trace's mix of playboy charm and rough, Alpha male Marine, there’d been more. Intelligence, based not just in experience, but in his own aptitude for knowledge that was well hidden behind the Texas country boy stereotype. Command presence, too, that'd been built through respect earned not by demanding, but by leading his men through conflict and out the other side of it. Trace was a dark horse, in more ways than one.

And if that wasn't enough, their brief time together had shown him that the Marine didn’t necessarily operate along party lines, or let them constrain him – Trace having grown his family unit across both his personal and professional lives, regardless of what anybody else had to say about it. Thermite was out here because Maverick was out here, and he’d stay out here until he was satisfied.

(Maverick knows this, because they’ve been here before.)

(Time, and again.)

‘…Which one of you am I talking to, Trace?’ The blonde finally says, referencing his teammate’s stance which belonged more so in an Old Western film than a frosty, Monday evening. ‘The Good, The Bad, or The Ugly?’

That earns a rumbled laugh, Thermite not even the least bit embarrassed at being called out. ‘You even gotta ask?’

Maverick rubs his hands together, trying to stall the numbing sensation settling in. ‘Ugly?’

‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, man.’

‘Amen,’ Maverick murmurs, briefly bumping up against Thermite’s shoulder. Nudging gently in a way he reserves for very few. Body autonomy has been a hard boundary for him ever since… ever since _that place_ , and the Delta operator isn’t quite sure what that means. Isn’t quite sure what that means because here, now, there’s an itch – an itch that has a habit of driving him out into the cold, or away from the supports Rainbow has given him. An itch that drives him to look into empty, black skies with a deep sense of longing that never seems to fade. That drives him to break promises and walk away from the good things in his life, just to reach _that place_ again. To feel the humidity, and the heat, and the sun on his face. To feel the bitter cold, and the brutal nights, and the sand that threatens to swallow his feet and never let go. To see the people that are so vibrant, and different, and _welcoming_ , even if they are sometimes even cruel. To experience the thrill of danger, and the thrum of pain. To _live_. And that’s hard to explain. It’s hard to understand. But as the curtain of snow, gently spiralling down overhead, turns more to sleet against a slowly building backdrop of _Jingle Bells_ , sung in Senaviev’s gruff baritone, Maverick tries. Just a little. Because in this strange world that still looks nothing like the one he wants to be in, Thermite is his brother, and the one he knows might understand. ‘The cold… reminds me of home.’

For a moment, there’s silence.

Heavy silence that falls like a thick blanket, as the Texan turns sharp eyes in his direction – mouth opening as though he’s about to question, before his jaw clicks shut. _Boston?_ The blonde is sure Thermite was going to ask, until the cogs started turning. Bringing the answer and an intensely burning gaze swinging in Maverick’s direction, because understanding was one thing. And acceptance…

Acceptance was another.

‘You say that like you ain’t already home,’ Thermite rumbles after a long, long time – voice uncharacteristically hard. Because he _did_ understand. He understood far too much, for a Marine supposedly thicker than a brick shithouse. ‘Not plannin’ on runnin’ off on us, are you?’

_Because you’ll stop me, won’t you, Trace?_

_That’s why you’ve been sticking so close lately._

Maverick has been kicking himself for weeks, about letting the Marine think they're attached. Has been kicking himself, because in reality, he’s let himself think the same.

(They’re as territorial as each other.)

And it’s thrown everything out of sync.

‘… Not on your watch, Jordan,’ Maverick reassures, tasting the half-lie on his tongue.

Through the walls of the barracks, he can hear Kötz joining the drunk Russian's off-key serenade. Can still feel Trace staring at him, figurative flames licking at his skin.

And then, it passes.

‘Good,’ comes the cheerful reply, as though they'd been discussing the weather - that trademark smirk of the Texan’s reappearing as he claps Maverick on the back, warm and friendly, despite the calculating edge still lingering in his eye. ‘You done out here, bud?’

It’s not really a question, when Thermite’s palm lingers between the Delta operator’s shoulder blades and the wet, soggy fabric of a far too weathered Santa hat suddenly drops down onto Maverick’s head. Big enough that it’s already sliding over the blonde hair plastered to his forehead before he has a chance to react.

‘Might as well be,’ Maverick says lowly, conceding defeat with a grimace at his new, novelty prop.

For tonight.

Thermite refuses to move, quietly indicating that he’s not about to step off first - his roguish dimples blatantly deceptive in the low light. ‘Reckon the others know we’ll be havin’ a white Christmas tomorrow?’

With a shake of his head, Maverick turns towards the barracks on stiff legs, briefly glancing back towards the heavens.

(Ever since Afghanistan he's unnerved people by moving too fast, or standing too still.)

(A raw nerve, poised to strike with one wrong move.)

(Dangerous.)

(But it turns out that Jordan Trace has an affinity for dangerous things. too.)

This time, he catches the star flickering just beyond the clouds.

* * *

**x:x:x:x:x:x:x:x:x:x:x:x:x:x:x:x**

* * *


End file.
